Test Drive Unlimited is a racing game, but it's not like any other racing game I've played–and that's a good thing. More and more cities are getting Wi-Fi hotspots, and Atari capitalized on this by making Test Drive Unlimited an online-only affair.

With about a thousand miles of GPS-mapped Hawaiian roads, there's an awful lot of space to explore and race. The graphics are extremely realistic, perhaps so much so that there's a warning as you enter the game. Hopefully, people know they're supposed to obey traffic laws, and that driving over 100 MPH isn't safe. You can race with plenty of great real-life cars such as Lamborghinis and Aston Martins.

After you log in, you drive around a little bit in a rental car. You get used to the controls, which for the most part don't require a manual. Press X to accelerate forward, press square to brake and go backward; you get the idea. Like “Knight Rider,” or perhaps more like real GPS, the car tells you when you should turn. It makes a big difference to be able to know you're going to need to turn right without having to take your eyes off the road to look at the map.

Finding a race was no issue either. I was surprised how quickly I was able to get into the action. For some reason, I kept racing against the same opponent–who I believe was a real person. However, I was unable to talk to him or her to find out why we kept racing. Perhaps it's because I kept losing, and we were both near the bottom of the leaderboards.

As in other racing games, there is traffic, but hitting it doesn't necessarily cause insane explosions. There's no charging up any kind of super speed mode either. Fans of high charged games may feel the game world is somewhat empty.

Although I'm not a fan of the racing genre, I did enjoy my time with this title. My only complaints are that the pulsating techno music makes for annoying driving music and that the game does not work offline.

USER COMMENTS 1 comment(s)

Did You Really Play This?(9:40pm EST Tue May 01 2007)That has got to be the worst review i've ever seen, it's not online only, the single player of the psp is the main drawcard. 120 cars to buy, houses to purchase to store them in, different race modes etc. Online just means once activated you'll see the other drivers in your game world, you can still ignore them and carry on your siingle player objectives, or challenge them to races.

Not sure what you played mate, but that “review” was a disgrace, so much so that i registered just to say so.